East Riding of Yorkshire Council is launching a food recycling campaign next month to encourage more residents to put food waste into their brown wheelie bins for recycling.
All the food and garden waste collected from residents’ brown bins is recycled into compost, however food waste still makes up almost a third of all waste placed in green household waste bins in the East Riding.
So the council is using the campaign to help spread the message and urge residents to use their brown bins instead.
The initiative will begin in March in areas of Beverley, South Cave, Kirk Ella, Elloughton, Hessle, Hedon, Withernsea and Patrington.
Waste and recycling officers will be placing orange tags on the green bins in each of the areas as a polite reminder to residents not to put food waste inside – and instead place it in their brown bin.
The scheme will branch out into other areas of the East Riding later in the year.
The campaign follows successful trials carried out in Bridlington, Willerby, Pocklington and Market Weighton last year, which resulted in an average decrease of around 1kg each week of waste per household in the green bin.
If similar results were seen across the whole of the East Riding, a further 4,000 tonnes of waste could be recycled each year.
Councillor Symon Fraser, the council’s portfolio holder for asset management, housing and environment, said: “East Riding residents do a fantastic job and are already achieving record recycling rates.
“So this campaign is a gentle reminder to encourage people to use their brown bins to recycle as much food waste as they can to help the environment.”
Brown bins should be used for food and garden waste, including cooked and uncooked food, fruit and vegetable peelings, plate scrapings, bones and carcases, meat and egg shells, as well as grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, small branches, leaves, flowers and weeds.
Put your food waste into the free kitchen caddy liners provided, or wrap it in newspaper or kitchen roll, before placing it into the brown bin.
The council encourages residents to put their brown bins out for collection every fortnight no matter how much waste is inside.
The tags placed on bins as part of the campaign will also direct people to where they can get advice and information on food waste including how to obtain a brown bin, kitchen caddy and caddy liners.
Free caddy liners are available from any of the council’s customer service centres, libraries, leisure centres and household waste recycling sites.
